


tell the world that we finally got it all right (i choose you)

by lesbianaang



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Trans girl aang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:48:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianaang/pseuds/lesbianaang
Summary: “I do not love the same way I did as a young woman. Our lives go on. People die. We fall in and out of love. We change. The spirits don’t, but they love us anyway. They don’t tell us where to go, they only tell us where we are going.”





	tell the world that we finally got it all right (i choose you)

The word etched onto her skin isn’t green, like her mother’s. It’s not black, like her father’s. It’s not soft white, like Sokka’s. It’s deep, royal purple. And even before she can read, she runs her fingers over her wrist. The purple is dark, almost too dark to see against her brown skin.

“It says Isa,” her mother says, a little smile on her face. “Isa is the name of your soulmate.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Sokka says. He gets a dopey little smile on his face. “Mine says Yue.”

“I know what yours says,” Katara snaps. “We’re talking about what mine says.”

“And yours is ugly,” Sokka says glibly. “Yue is a way prettier name than Isa.”

Katara can’t argue with that. Isa is about the ugliest name she’s ever heard. But she gets defensive over her soulmate. Her soulmate with an ugly name. She chases Sokka and then tickles him until he yells uncle.

Teach him to make fun of her soulmate.

* * *

 

Years later, Katara is running.

“Go on, Katara. I’ll handle this.”

She blinks tears from her eyes, and keeps running.

It seems to take forever for her to reach her father. Katara slams into him, and once she’s there, she can’t stop crying long enough to tell him what’s going on. But she doesn’t need to tell him.

He gasps in pain, and tugs down his sleeve. The name there- Kya- fades from true, beautiful black to an ashy, lifeless gray as they watch. Her father runs, and leaves Katara standing alone in the snow.

After that, he wears a bandage over his wrist. Katara thinks she understands. She doesn’t.

* * *

Soulmates are not a happy thing. Katara realizes this all at once, while she’s doing laundry one day.

There is no one in the village with the name Isa or Yue. Or the name on Gran Gran’s wrist, or the name on Tula’s wrist or Nia’s or Kalusa’s. How could there be? There are less than a hundred people in the entire Southern Tribe, and it’s been halved since the departure of the men. There’s a whole wide world of soulmates out there, and their little pocket of life is isolated from it.

Katara realizes, in fact, that the only people she’s ever known to meet their soulmate are her parents. No, soulmates are not a happy thing.

It’s nighttime when Katara comes inside to sleep. Gran Gran is awake, reading by the lamplight.

“Gran Gran,” Katara says, quietly so as not to wake Sokka. “Do you feel sad you’ll never meet your soulmate?”

“No,” Gran Gran says softly.

“Why?”

“I have all the love I need,” Gran Gran says.

Katara thinks about that. “But your soulmate is perfect,” she says. “For you. He’ll make you happier than anyone else in the world.”

“Eh,” Gran Gran says, shrugging. “I’ve had a soulmate before. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

“You’ve had a soulmate before?”

“They change, love,” Gran Gran says, smiling. “I do not love the same way I did as a young woman. Our lives go on. People die. We fall in and out of love. We change. The spirits don’t, but they love us anyway. They don’t tell us where to go, they only tell us where we are going.”

Katara looks down at her wrist.  _ Isa  _ is etched there, in that beautiful purple calligraphy. “I don’t want mine to change,” she says, petulant.

“Maybe it won’t,” Gran Gran says. “Your mother’s never did.”

“What about Dad?”

Gran Gran looks thoughtful. “I don’t know, love. Sometimes it changes after your soulmate dies. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it just stays that gray color.”

Katara stares at the floor. She doesn’t know what’s worse, the thought that her father’s name changed or that it stayed a dead gray  _ Kya _ .

“Go to bed, love,” Gran Gran says, kissing her forehead. “We have work tomorrow.”

* * *

 

When Katara is ten, her father has been gone for a year. But she’s thinking of him when her wrist starts burning like a brand, and she screams and collapses in the middle of the village.

She still remembers his face, the little gasp of pain. Katara thought it had been more of surprise than anything, but it wasn’t. It hurt more than anything she’d ever felt in her young life. 

Her father must have a very high pain tolerance, Katara thinks hazily as she’s helped to her feet. She tugs down her sleeve, brushing off attempts to help her, and there it is. Isa, a scar now rather than a tattoo. 

Katara cries for Isa for a long time, and when she’s done, she wraps her wrist in a bandage. 

* * *

Sokka doesn’t like letting her see his mark. She thinks he might feel guilty that he has one and she doesn’t. Isa died months ago, and the name is still stamped in gray on Katara’s wrist.

Katara likes seeing Sokka’s name, though. It’s so white there’s a touch of blue, and in the dark it’s almost luminescent. 

“I bet your soulmate will be beautiful,” she tells him sometimes. “Her name looks like ice right there on your skin.”

Sokka never quite knows what to say back. Once, he just kisses her forehead awkwardly and says good night. He lumbers off to bed, leaving Katara pensive.

She’s right, she’s sure. Yue is a beautiful name, for a beautiful love.

* * *

 

Her mark fades without so much as a twinge. And the next day, a different name appears, coal red and dark. It hurts dully, like someone is holding too hard to her wrist. She’s eleven, and now she can read the name by herself.

_ Zuko,  _ sharp and heavy and comforting on her tongue when she whispers it.

Katara traces the name, and wonders what’s happened to her or to Zuko that has told the spirits they belong together.

Then she replaces the bandage and gets back to work.

* * *

 

Katara doesn’t know why she asks. Maybe she just wants someone to make her feel a little normal. “Tula, how many of your soulmates have you met?”

Tula looks surprised. “I’m no tramp,” she says, vaguely offended. “I’ve only had one soulmate.”

Katara feels suddenly embarrassed. On her second soulmate, and she’s only thirteen.

“Mine isn’t from here, though,” Tula adds after a while. She shows Katara her mark, and Katara wants to hold her breath. It’s a deeply private thing, your mark. Tula’s is a bright red-pink. It stands out against her cool dark skin.

“Zhen,” Katara reads. “He’s not from here.”

“No,” Tula agrees.

“Katara!” 

It’s Sokka.

“What!” Katara yells.

“Come on.” Sokka throws a bundle at her, and she catches it, frowning at him. “We’re going out fishing.”

* * *

 

“Gone?”

Aang’s eyes- gray, but bright, not like the scarring of a dead soulmark- are wet with tears.

“That’s what that gray means,” Katara says, gentle. “He’s gone.”

Aang, hardly five minutes out of her iceberg, kneels on the ice, cradling her arm against her chest. She bows her head, and spirits, Katara recognizes that pain.

Katara puts her arm around Aang, and Aang folds so easily against her. 

“Her name was Kia,” Aang says, quietly. “And she was this- this orange color, on my wrist. I knew her. I promised to visit her next week, I-” Aang can’t speak anymore.

“Mine’s name was Isa,” Katara says, and is surprised to learn there are real tears in her throat, too. Aang looks at her for a moment and rests her forehead against Katara’s temple.

“Did you know them?”

“No,” Katara confesses. “But he died, and it hurt all the same.”

It’s only when they’re floating home on the back of an enormous horned animal that Katara registers- Aang’s soulmate was a girl.

* * *

“Yeah, his name was Zuko,” Aang says. She’s eating dried fruit, lying on her back in Appa’s saddle. “Why?”

Katara keeps her arms folded protectively over her chest. “No reason,” she says, feeling sick to her stomach.

She can feel Sokka’s eyes burning into the side of her head.

* * *

“You’re not going to tell her?”

“Of course not.”

Katara’s hands ball into fists. “So, what?” she demands. “You’ll just leave her here?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Sokka snaps. “She isn’t my soulmate, and we have to keep going! We have a job to do, remember? I can’t get hung up on every girl-”

“She’s not every girl,” Katara points out. “She has your name on her wrist.”

Sokka opens his mouth, but Katara keeps going. “And she’s really cool, Sokka. She’s smart and beautiful and a good warrior, _ and  _ she taught you to fight. How could you just leave her?”

“At least I don’t have the name of a Fire Nation prince,” spits Sokka. “I’ll handle my business if you handle yours, Katara.”

He storms off, leaving Katara alone. She looks up at the huge statue of Kyoshi and cries, alone in the moonlit street.

She doesn’t know how long it is before she feels a hand on her shoulder. It’s Aang, she knows that before opening her eyes.

“Katara?” she asks tentatively.

“Hi, Aang,” Katara says, feeling exhausted.

“What’s wrong?” 

Katara pushes up her sleeve, and wordlessly, she shows her mark to Aang.

“Oh,” Aang says.

“Yeah.” Katara wipes away the wetness on her face. “I just- it’s so  _ humiliating.” _

Aang rubs Katara’s shoulder gently, not saying a word.

“His family destroyed my home,” Katara plows on. “They’ve destroyed the Southern Water Tribe. He’s chasing us down. And this stupid- this stupid-” She won’t cry again. She won’t. “I’m his, just like everything else in the Water Tribe is his. I hate it. I won’t ever love him. Not ever.” She stares hard at her wrist, trying to hope away the low flame-red calligraphy. It doesn’t so much as itch.

“Maybe you won’t have to,” Aang says softly. “Monk Gyatso always said that the spirits know best, but they’ll follow us. It’s always up to you, no matter what they write on you.”

Katara lets out a watery laugh. “My Gran Gran says the same thing,” she says. “You really are a hundred years old.”

Aang laughs. “It will be okay, Katara,” she says. “Come on.”

Katara follows Aang.

* * *

“Great romance, huh?” Katara asks, disappointed.

“Oh yes, with a very powerful bender,” Aunt Wu says, smiling.

Katara huffs. “Oh, I know he is.”

Aunt Wu looks thoughtful. “Why don’t you send in that young bald woman?” she says. “Your friend?”

“Yeah, Aang,” Katara says.

“I’m sure she and I will have a lot to talk about,” Aunt Wu says, looking almost mischievous.

Katara gets to her feet. “I will. Thanks, Aunt Wu.”

* * *

Sokka remembers what she said, all those years ago.

In the low lamplight, he speaks softly into the cold air. “She is beautiful.”

Katara turns over in her bed, smiling to herself.

“Who?” Aang asks.

“His soulmate,” Katara says teasingly.

“Yeah,” Sokka says dreamily. “My soulmate.”

* * *

Katara watches the bright gold-yellow  _ Sokka  _ on Yue’s wrist fade to nothing. It’s easier than seeing the pain on Sokka’s face as the  _ Yue  _ on his wrist burns to gray.

* * *

Aang is staring straight ahead, her body uncharacteristically rigid, and Katara can hardly stand seeing her in pain. She slides gently over the hump on Appa’s back, landing next to Aang and putting a hand on her back. Aang starts.

“I’ll never make you do that. Not ever again,” Katara promises softly.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Aang says, and she’s overflowing with emotion, too soft and too brighthearted like she always is.

“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” Katara says, quickly. Aang carries enough guilt as it is. “You just- you seem so angry. And sad.”

“I guess you have to be sometimes.” Aang’s voice breaks, and quickly, she wipes her eyes.

“No, you don’t.” Katara knows she’s lying, but it breaks her heart to see Aang in so much pain.

Aang looks at her, a thread of determination in her voice. “Well, then, you don’t have to be either.”

“Aang-”

Aang cuts her off. “As long as you don’t hurt, I won’t either.”

* * *

For a long time, no one talks about soulmates. Love isn’t war, sure, but it’s what lets war hurt you so much.

Once, in an Earth Kingdom town, they meet a girl named Isa. Isa is sweet. She has warm brown skin, bright brown eyes, and a baby on her hip. Katara can’t take her eyes off her.

“Isa,” Katara repeats. She realizes she’s been pronouncing it wrong her whole life.

“Yes?” Isa can’t be much older than Katara, sixteen at most. The baby has dark gold eyes.

“What kind of name is that?” Katara asks. “Is it rare?”

Isa laughs like the slow drip of honey. “Oh, no,” she says. “Isa’s a very common name here in the Earth Kingdom. You’ve never met a girl named Isa before?”

Katara feels far away. So Isa’s always been a girl.  “No,” she says. “I’m not from here.”

Isa smiles. “Where are you from?”

“Southern Water Tribe. No one goes down there much anymore,” Katara adds.

Isa’s expression seems to stiffen on her face. “Lucky you,” she says. It sounds like she’s trying very hard not to be malicious. “The Fire Nation swings by here every year or so.”

“Not that lucky,” Katara says. Her mark seems to burn all over again, knowing how her Isa must have died. An Earth Kingdom child fallen prey to Fire Nation soldiers. “My mother was killed in a raid a while ago.”

Isa softens. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” Katara can’t take her eyes off that baby’s amber-yellow eyes.

* * *

They’re flying through a cool, starless night. Sokka is asleep at the reins. Katara is sleeping, but not really.

“I know you guys don’t like me that much. It’s fine.” Toph’s quiet voice floats to her from the front of the saddle. Katara doesn’t rush to correct her.

“No, we like you.” Aang’s protest seems to fall flat.

“It’s fine,” Toph says again, a hard edge to her voice now. “I’d rather be a jackass than a useless little girl.”

“You’re not a jackass,” Aang assures her. “And we like you. Katara can get a little, well-”

“Annoying?”

“No,” Aang says, sounding miffed. “Don’t talk like that about her.”

They’re quiet for a while, but Katara thinks she must’ve missed part of the conversation, because Toph says, “Will you read me mine?”

“Okay,” Aang says. She says something else, too low for Katara to hear, and then Toph lets out a harsh bark of laughter. It sounds a little like a sob.

“So that’s why,” Toph says.

“Why what?” Aang asks.

“My parents never wanted me to know,” Toph says. She lets out an angry huff. “Guess I know why now.”

“Girls can’t like each other, huh?” Aang says quietly. “My soulmate- before- she was from the Western Air Temple. I didn’t know nobody outside the Nomads-”

“No, girls can’t like each other,” Toph cuts her off. Katara thinks she hears a sniffle, and then Toph laughs. “That’s pretty cool, though. Imagine that- I’ll come home with a wife someday.”

“Hope I do too,” Aang says.

Toph hardly misses a beat. “I think you will.”

* * *

With every passing day, Katara hates the mark on her wrist a little more.

It’s a cruel joke. Just the thought of his pale face makes her skin crawl, makes her feel like it’s time to fight for her life. Makes her remember all that the Fire Nation has done to her.

When it’s late, sometimes, Katara wonders if this is the spirits backing up the Fire Nation.

_ They’ve taken everything _ , they seem to say.  _ Give them this too. _

* * *

Sokka’s acting strange.

Katara tracks him out of the corner of her eye. He’s fussing over Suki so much Suki can hardly take a step without Sokka dusting off the ground before her.

“Guess she’s not just every girl after all, huh?” Katara murmurs to Sokka once as she sweeps past him.

Sokka doesn’t answer, just tightens the covering on his wrist.

* * *

 

Katara’s spine goes stiff when she sees him.

“You.” Her voice echoes through the room, making her sound more intimidating than she feels. The sight of anybody from the Fire Nation makes her feel weak and small.

Zuko gets to his feet and brushes the dust off his robes. He doesn’t answer.

“I’m talking to you,” she says, louder.

“What do you want to say?” Zuko retorts. “We’re stuck in here. Stuck in Azula’s game. Unless someone comes to save us, there’s no-”

“Shut up!” shouts Katara.

“I thought you wanted me to-”

“Just shut up!” she roars. “I’ve had enough of you, worthless filthy-”

She cuts herself off, because she thinks she might cry of all the rage and grief that twists her up inside. It would be the ultimate humiliation to cry in front of him.

Well, the penultimate humiliation.

She turns her back on him, sitting down hard and staring at the green light that illuminates the cavern. It looks sick and hollow, makes her feel nauseous.

“I’m sorry.”

It nearly makes her heart stop.

“What?” she asks, looking back at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, without anger or sarcasm or contempt. “I really am.”

“For what?” Katara pushes.

“For invading your village.” Zuko pauses. “For everyone that ever invaded your village. For hunting you. For hurting you. I’m sorry.”

Katara faces away from him again to rub the tears from her eyes, but then she turns around fully, so that her whole body is facing him.

“You have no idea,” she says, tired. “You have no idea what the Fire Nation is capable of. How rotten it is.”

Zuko hesitates. Seems to build up his courage. “My dad killed my mom,” he says finally. “And then burned off my face, and then banished me.”

“Your dad killed my mom, too,” Katara says. She remembers the necklace that still feels tainted from Zuko’s touch.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says.

Katara gets to her feet. It feels as though some of the poison inside her has drained away. Or, at least, has been redirected.

“I can heal your scar, I think,” she says, softly. An offering of peace. Forgiveness.

Zuko doesn’t say anything, just watches her. He doesn’t seem either predatory or scared. Just waiting and open.

She walks over to him and takes the spirit water off her neck. She lays a hand on his scar. The skin is rough, discolored, disfigured. His good eye droops shut at the gentle touch. One hand comes up as if to touch hers, and for a split second, Katara catches a glimpse of a rich, olive green lettering on his exposed wrist.

It reads  _ Katara. _

Then the catacombs burst open, and they jump apart.

* * *

Hardly an hour later, Katara’s wrist is throbbing with the intense, dull pain of a changing soulmark. She can barely feel it. She can only scream insults at Zuko and try not to cry.

* * *

Her wrist burns, but her pain tolerance is a lot higher than it was when she was ten. Katara scoops Aang up and doesn’t bother to glare at Zuko as she runs for her life.

The pain hasn’t abated when she gets to Appa. Desperately, she pulls out the vial of water (thank the spirits she hadn’t wasted it on Zuko) and bends it, a little clumsily into Aang’s wound.

She knows it’s worked when the pain vanishes from her wrist. Aang opens her eyes, and Katara starts to cry.

* * *

_ Aang _ is in sky blue, she notices days later as she takes off her wrist wrappings. She always did like blue better than red.

* * *

_ Katara _ is in rich, chestnut brown on Aang’s wrist. Small miracle Aang could keep this secret so long. She’s a terrible liar.

* * *

“Please wake up.”

* * *

Katara stares at her mark, alone on the deck of the ship. Aang is fine, as long as the mark hasn’t gone gray.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Hi, Dad,” Katara says dully. She covers her wrist as he comes closer.

“Aang back yet?”

“Obviously not.” The words are curt, but Katara can’t deliver them in the biting tone she meant to. It comes out gray.

Her father puts his arms around her shoulders from the back. He’s taken his wrist coverings off, which is how Katara sees the dark calligraphy on his wrist instead of the light gray that should be there. She catches his hand.

_ Bato. _

Her father pulls away, but the damage is done.

“No wonder you were so ready to leave us,” Katara says, the meanness spilling out of her too easily. “Forget about Kya and her kids, right? Go off with your new soulmate.”

He stares at her, the hurt clear in his expression. “Of course not.”

“Forget it,” spits Katara, turning away from him.

He walks around to stand in front of her. “Listen to me,” he says, his voice hard. “I never wanted to leave you. Maybe it was the wrong decision, but I felt that leaving, fighting away from home, was the best way to take the hurt away from you. And trust me, please, I have never and would never act on- on this.” He shakes his wrist with its deep blue lettering, and Katara can see the self hatred on his face.

Katara is wrong. She knows she’s wrong. There’s so much poison stored up in her, and trying to let it out only seems to make it grow.

So she tries to stifle it instead. 

“I understand why you left,” Katara says quietly. “And it hurt, but- but that’s okay.”

“No it isn’t,” he says immediately.

“Yes, it is,” Katara insists. “Because I learned how to protect myself and my home, and that was important. I needed to learn that.”

“I wish you didn’t have to,” her father says, and his voice is so small.

“Me too,” Katara says.

They stand together quietly for a while.

“And it’s okay. To love Bato, I mean.”

Her father looks at her, startled.

“I mean it,” Katara says. “Mom’s gone, and she’d want you to be happy. If a man makes you happy, then that’s what you deserve.”

“I appreciate that, Katara.”

She can tell he doesn’t believe her. But these things take time.

* * *

Going into Fire Nation territory means working to pass for colonists. Katara, knowing she and Sokka can’t pass for Fire, makes Toph teach them how to speak with Earth noble accents in hopes that they’ll at least pass for Earth Kingdom. (“Those Fire bastards can’t tell the difference, anyway,” Sokka says.) Aang’s stint in a Fire Nation school lets them escape with a textbook that Sokka studies almost religiously. They learn to manage the abrasively hot food, learn not to wince at casually horrific remarks made by locals, learn when to charge head on into a fight and when to slink away.

All four of them cover up their soulmarks in public. Every morning, Aang and Katara help each other snap on bracelets to cover each other’s names.

“I don’t have to do this,” Aang says, once. The sun hasn’t risen. Sokka and Toph snore.

“Do what?” Katara asks. She closes the bronze cuff onto Aang’s wrist, and Aang flexes her hand restlessly.

“I don’t want to cover this up anymore,” Aang says, insistent. She’s earnest and already a little defensive, like she’s sure Katara will stop her before she can finish. “You’re my soulmate, Katara, I’m sick of hiding it.”

It’s the first time they’ve said it out loud. Katara rubs at her own bracelet.

“Just a little longer,” she promises.

“How much longer?” Aang asks.

“Come on, Aang,” Katara says, sighing. “You know how much longer.”

* * *

At the invasion, they wear their marks proudly. Katara knows her father is tracking her wrist like he can’t believe the name there, but she doesn’t mind. She and her soulmate are saving the world, and themselves with it.

* * *

“I know.”

Katara closes her mouth, a little miffed. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you were going to say,” Aang says snappishly.

“No, you don’t,” Katara says, irritated now. Aang exhales and closes her eyes.

“Sorry,” she says lowly.

Katara doesn’t say anything, sitting down near Aang. She has a sudden urge to ask what it’s like being back at the temple, but she doesn’t.

“I really thought the invasion would work,” Aang says quietly.

“We all did.”

Aang rubs a hand over her bald head. “You should sleep,” she says. “I’ll take first watch.”

Katara wants to protest, but she’s tired, bone deep tired. One night of rest, she promises herself, and then she’ll be on her feet again.

* * *

“I just don’t understand why.”

Aang exhales and buries her face in her hands. “Katara-”

“How could you let him in here?” Katara demands. “You know who he-” She can’t finish her sentence.

“He’s not your soulmate anymore, is he?” Aang retorts. “I am!”

“Try acting like it!”

Aang recoils like she’s been slapped. “What does  _ that  _ mean?” she asks.

They stare at each other for a moment before Aang drops her gaze, and Katara sighs. Reminds herself that indulging in rage only lets it grow.

“I’m sorry I said that,” she forces out.

“I’m sorry I let Zuko join,” Aang says. “But I need a teacher, Katara. That’s the only way this war will end.”

Katara leaves Aang’s room more agitated than when she entered.

* * *

All that poison seems to have come to a head. There’s nothing that satisfies her, nothing that makes her calm, nothing that ever makes her unclench her fists. She spars with Toph, because Toph won’t hold back and Katara can’t make herself hold back. She helps with the food, and it makes her furious that it’s been nearly a year since she left home and Sokka still depends on her to feed him. Aang trains with Zuko, is stupidly, infuriatingly cheery, even after everything.

Zuko breaks bread with them. He always keeps his wrist covered. In a masochistic obsession, Katara spends more time staring at the bronze cuff on his wrist than at his gruesomely scarred face.

She has to know. She  _ has  _ to know.

Maybe if she knows for sure that her name is no longer his, then, finally this nauseous fear and pain and rage will drain out of her like rainwater.

She sneaks into his room once, late. To silence her footsteps, she uses the water from the air to support her steps, so her feet never touch the floor. The door opens soundlessly. Her heart beats in her throat.

His bed is empty.

* * *

“Gone fishing.”

* * *

Sokka sits right between Zuko and Suki that night. Katara sits on the other side of the fire, watching everyone smile and feeling so angry she’s surprised the fire doesn’t go out.

After dinner, the new guy- Chit Sang- and Suki offer to clean up. Katara means to head straight to bed without speaking to anyone. She’s stopped in the hallway.

“Katara, aren’t you gonna say good night?” her father asks, his tired face opening in a smile.

“Good night, Dad,” Katara says, mustering a small but genuine smile.

His face falls a little. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing. Just tired.”

He looks at her. “I noticed you and Aang didn’t sit together at dinner,” he says.

Katara wants to burst into laughter. As if they’re all little kids, fussing over crushes. “We don’t sit together every night,” she says.

“You seem different,” her father pushes. “Unhappy.”

“We’re at war, Dad,” Katara snaps.

“Okay,” her father says, putting his hands up. Katara notices that he doesn’t have  _ Bato  _ covered up. “It’s okay.”

“Whatever,” she says, but her eyes are clinging to his soulmark.

“I talked to Bato,” he says after a while. He must’ve seen her staring.

Katara’s eyes flick to her father’s face. He looks uncertain, and she forces her face to relax into a kinder expression.

“I don’t know how you and Aang do it,” he says with an aborted chuckle.

“Do what?” she asks.

He shrugs, helplessly. “You’re in this big group, and neither of you cover up at all. Everyone knows you’re-”

“Gay?”

He deflates slightly. “You’re stronger than I am,” he says quietly.

“What did Bato say?”

He pulls her into a hug. “After the war,” he says, and Katara doesn’t know if the promise is from him or from Bato.

* * *

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Aang, I’m fine.”

* * *

She’s just so  _ angry. _

* * *

“I don’t get it!” Zuko yells, and she can hear her own anger reflected back at her. She revels in it.

“Oh, you don’t?” Katara demands. “Tell me- look me in the eye, and tell me that you don’t understand why I still don’t trust you!”

For the first time since the catacombs, she makes eye contact with him. She stares at him and she hates him, with every fiber of herself, she hates his pale skin, she hates his yellow eyes, she hates his angry red scar, she  _ hates. _

He’s the first to break. He lowers his eyes, and she turns her back to him in bitter triumph.

“I don’t know how to prove myself to you,” he says.

“You can’t,” she says with damning finality. “You took my home and you took my mother and you tried to take me. I can hate you- that’s still mine.”

When she turns again, Zuko is gone.

* * *

There aren’t enough tents for everyone. Most of the ones they owned were destroyed when Azula attacked the temple, so Katara shares her tent with Aang.

Katara ducks inside to see Aang playing lazily with Momo. Aang lifts her head as Katara comes inside.

“Hey, Katara,” Aang says softly.

“Hi, Aang,” Katara says.

“What’d you and Zuko talk about?” Aang asks.

“Nothing,” Katara says, and there must be something in her expression that warns Aang off, because she drops it.

Katara’s angry, but she’s tired, too. She’s twisted, hurt, knotted up. She looks at Aang, deliberating, and wordlessly hands her a brush.

Aang smiles sleepily. “Like old times, right?” she says.

In the early days, Aang would brush out her hair, and they would talk about nothing or about everything. Katara would go to bed feeling at peace. She can’t remember when they stopped doing it.

Aang is gentle with the brush, gentler than Katara herself is. She tugs the brush through Katara’s thick hair, detangling it carefully. They don’t talk now, not like they used to, but it feels good nonetheless. Katara closes her eyes, letting herself melt against Aang’s softness. It almost doesn’t feel like giving up.

* * *

 

That morning, Katara walks by Zuko without looking at him. He stands up and speaks anyway.

“I know who killed your mother.”

She stops walking, involuntarily. Years of grief and anger slam into her all over again, rendering her motionless. When the assault stops, she’s left with a choice.

A choice is all she’s ever wanted. But when she turns to Zuko, it doesn’t feel like it ever was any kind of choice.

* * *

_ Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. _

Everything in her tells her to kill him. Zuko’s watching eyes encourage her. The whimpering coward before her inflames her. The falling rain empowers her.

Was it ever a choice?

When she makes the ice blades, it’s like something is acting through her. And it’s only as they’re arcing through the air that she realizes that it can’t be something else that makes this choice for her.

The ice melts in the air.

She chooses to let him live.

It’s the hardest decision she’s ever made- not to leave him alive, but the decision to make that choice at all.

She turns her face up to the pouring rain, feeling it run down her face and neck. As long as she always chooses for herself, she won’t ever be prisoner to anything- not the Fire Nation, not Zuko, not her own rage.

* * *

“I’m really proud of you, Katara,” Aang says. “You chose forgiveness.”

“I don’t know about that,” Katara says. “But I chose something.” She gets to her feet and hugs Aang tightly.

She looks at Zuko, hanging back uncertainly. She steps forward and takes his hand in hers gently.

“Do you want to know?” Zuko asks. “If you’re still-”

“No,” Katara interrupts. She pats the cuff over Zuko’s soulmark. “I’m-” she takes a deep breath. “Whatever it says on your wrist- that’s yours, it’s not mine and it doesn’t have anything to do with me.” She hugs him, too. It takes a while for him to hug her back, but he does.

“Besides,” she says, pulling away after a long moment. “I only like girls.”

Zuko smiles at her, a little shy. “Good,” he says, awkwardly but sincerely.

Katara takes Aang’s hand. After a last look at the sunset, they return to camp.

* * *

 

It’s as Katara stares at Azula, screaming and chained up, that she realizes that some girls don’t make the choice. It looks like Azula might never know she belongs to herself.

* * *

 

Katara follows Aang outside. Her gray eyes are full of tears as she stares at the open orange sky.

Aang takes Katara’s hand and pushes her sleeve up. Katara lets her. The pale blue  _ Aang  _ is soft in the sunset light.

Aang opens her mouth, but seems to find nothing to say, or decides not to speak. Katara brushes a tear from Aang’s cheek.

In the end, it was true- the spirits followed her, all the way to liberation.


End file.
